Recovery

My system was so saturated with alcohol and drugs, withdrawal was very difficult. I had the shakes so bad much of the time it would take three to six tries just to get a teaspoonful of sugar into a cup of coffee.

And at times I had mild convulsions. I should have had medical treatment, but back in those days that kind of recovery was not a valid reason to be hospitalized as it is this day and time.

Day by day it got a little easier, God, and my husband was my greatest support system. The first six months were the roughest. Sometimes the compulsion to drink and pop pills would come upon me so heavy, and I would wrestle with it awhile.

Just when I would reach my breaking point and I started to pick up the phone and call someone to bring me something or take me to get something or find my car keys if I had the car to go myself, the compulsion would lift instantly.

Later I came to realize this was the working of the Holy Spirit teaching me how to resist temptation.

1963 was a hell of a year; so much happened in this year, but it was also one of my best, all of it came as blessings in disguise, although at that time I didn't recognize them as such, but later looking back over my life I did realize this.

My deliverance came in March; then in April I was hospitalized and had surgery, while Chuck was at sea. In September I made a trip with my neighbor to Kansas to take her daughter to enroll in college there.

Bahia Honda State Park
photo by The Real Florida

On the way back; she was driving at the time, just as day was beginning to break she fell asleep at the wheel on the mainland end of the old Bahia Honda Bridge and wrecked her Volkswagen micro bus. 

There was a fairly steep embankment from the roadway down to the little pond that you can see in the photo. 

When she left the road she woke up and jerked the wheel, the vehicle flipped, and we rolled over two and a half times before we skidded to a stop, with the right side of the vehicle down, and driver's side up.

My children and I were in the back, I was laying on the back seat and they were sleeping on a mattress on the floor; we had removed the middle seat so we could put the mattress down for sleeping.

I had just dozed off, but I woke up when she left the road, I vaguely remember a big steamer trunk hitting me in the head and it knocked me unconscious.

When I regained consciousness two brothers on an early morning fishing trip had seen her headlights where there should not have been any lights and had stopped to investigate and help us; they were first to stop.

They got my children out to safety and then helped me out, but they could not help Maxine, one of her legs was threaded through the steering wheel and the other knee was jammed into the dash. When the emergency crew arrived they had to cut her out.

We were taken by ambulance to Fisherman's Hospital in Marathon because it was the nearest. The Highway Patrolman took my children to the hospital in his car. 

Chuck was called and while I was still conscious I asked them to call Bobbie Hickman who lived in Marathon, to come and take care of my children till Chuck arrived because it would be at least another hour and a half before he could get there.

There were several places on my body where I had no skin left, and the Dr’s at Fisherman's had conferred with the Orthopedic specialist in Miami and told Chuck I would never walk again due to Compressed fractures; three upper and two lower, and the severe trauma to my spine.

Every moment that I was conscious I was praying; asking God to heal me. We were later transferred by Navy ambulances to the U S Naval Hospital in Key West, and seventeen days later I walked out of the hospital. I was in a full metal body brace, but thank God I walked out and I am still walking.

One thing that really touched my heart was Chaplin Reese, from the Boca Chica Naval Air Station read about the wreck involving two Navy wives in the newspaper and he made that 110 mile round trip every day for fourteen days to come and visit and minister to us, and he didn't know us from Adam, till he came. 

Neither of our husbands were stationed at Boca Chica, they were both attached to the main Navy Base in Key West. I think this was the first time I had ever experienced the love of God in action, and I knew it at the time. As long as Chaplin Reese was stationed at the Chapel at Boca Chica; Chuck and I took our children to the services there.

I had my first meltdown of emotion when the two Hospital Corpsmen and the two Navy nurses walked in to transport us back to Key West, I was so happy to see Navy uniforms again! 

I had two years of physical therapy three times a week before I could finally take that metal body brace off and walk free. I also had the best Orthopedic Dr. at the Navy hospital, Dr Benivedes.

Out of Control

Over the years Chuck and I partied a lot, he eventually quit drinking alcohol completely because it usually caused a big problem when we partied and we had both had too much alcohol.

But I didn't quit; in fact I got worse and sometime after Bo was born I had gained a good bit of weight. The new miracle diet pill was available, the little green and black beauty called Dexamyl, which was really nothing but an amphetamine. They were legal back then, and I got mine at the Navy Hospital, but they later became a street drug.

I started taking them and of course I began to drop the weight. At that time I had no idea how addictive they were. Mixing them with the alcohol I was consuming, my life soon spun out of control.

I became so addicted to the alcohol and the pills and soon I needed downers (barbiturates) because I would get so wired out, I would not eat or sleep for two or three days at a time, till my body crashed from exhaustion. It was a vicious cycle. I lost so much weight I was gaunt and I began to look like death warmed over.

I was so out of control of my life, and I knew I was, but I could not make myself stop. During the next eighteen months, I started seeing the Psychiatrist at the Navy Hospital and it didn't seem to help, and then I began seeing the Psychologist at the Mental Heath clinic.

Again it didn't seem to help and then I tried the Chaplin at the Navy Hospital. No help there either, can’t say it was anyone’s fault it just wasn't the right time.

Eventually Chuck reached his saturation point and he gave me quite an ultimatum.  He also gave me a week to think about what he said to me before giving him my answer.

He said, “I’m watching you die by degrees daily and I can’t stand it any longer, I love you more than anything in this world and I will do anything to help you get over this.

If I have to borrow money that it takes the rest of my life to pay back we’ll find help for you someplace; it’s either one life down the drain or four and I will not let you take me and the kids with you, and it's up to you to decide.”

In those days there was not a lot of help out there like there is now. There was AA, but the problem with that was me, from what I had heard I knew I could not stand up before strangers and talk. Many years later I did get involved in AA.

For the next week I was probably the most miserable person on the face of the earth. At this point in my life I had shut God out, and I was at the place I wondered if He was real or a myth. I soon discovered He is very real.

I will never forget it was on Wednesday night and Chuck had the duty, I put the kids to bed and I knew it would be a sleepless night for me. My concept of prayer was; if your speech was flowery enough, and "IF" there was a God he might hear you.

I tried some of those flowery speeches which didn't work, and I became so frustrated, so finally I just yelled out, “I don’t know how to pray so I’m just gonna talk to you, okay!” 

I have since come to understand this is prayer, just talking openly and honestly to Him about what is in your heart. My talk seemed to turn into a wrestling match for the next couple of hours.

At one point I was on my knees in the middle of my bed shaking my fist and yelling “I love my husband and children and I don’t want to lose them; I need your help like I’ve never needed help, and if you really exist I challenge you to reveal yourself to me in a way I can understand, because I don’t understand the mean God I always heard about.”

Suddenly wave after wave of pure peace began to wash through me, and I fell asleep and slept like a newborn baby. Two nights later I had a dream that changed my life forever, and I learned that LOVE is the greatest motivator in the entire universe.